Gordie Howe bridge, fighter jets part of Independence Day remarks with political message. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra's speech at his Fourth of July party in Ottawa included a political nudge aimed at Canada, with American F-35 fighter jets flying over the crowd and a comment about some provinces' bans on American booze. Hoekstra set a goal on stage...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is scheduled to leave for Ankara on Monday to attend the annual NATO summit -- the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to Turkey since 2015. Turkey's capital will make up the first leg of Carney's week-long sojourn to the Middle East, which will conclude with a short stay in Saudi Arabia aimed at deepening...
Hundreds of people clad in western wear gathered at Heritage Park for the annual Conservative Party Barbecue Saturday evening, headlined by a speech from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra is denying that donations from the family that owns the Ambassador Bridge are behind the delayed opening of the new Gordie Howe Bridge. “Absolutely not,” Hoekstra said when asked by Global News whether the delay was tied to a US$1-million donation from billionaire Matthew Moroun — whose family owns the competing Ambassador Bridge —...
Former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper, a Liberal and Conservative, will unite to help raise money to renovate 24 Sussex Drive, says the foundation working to solicit donations for the official residence of Canada’s prime ministers. The Rideau Hall Foundation says the pair were critical to moving the project forward ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement last...
Our latest wave of federal political tracking finds remarkably little movement in the political landscape. This survey was done entirely before news of the agreements between British Columbia and Canada and the news about a new pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. It was also done mostly before the Trump Administration announced it would not be renewing CUSMA.
Nanos was retained to conduct research to gauge the views of Canadians on the importance of the Alto High-Speed Rail Project as a government priority.
Let’s thank U.S. President Donald Trump for one thing. As Ottawa launches a national competition to restore 24 Sussex Drive, the White House renovations are a lesson in what not to do. A master class, really. Trump is building to glorify himself. The “goldening” of the Oval Office, the transformation of the Rose Garden into a Mar-a-Lago-style patio designed to...
British Columbia Premier David Eby, had, in U.S. President Donald Trump’s words, “no cards” to play during contentious pipeline talks, but he walked away this week with a winning hand, leaving Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith with successes to boast of, but with major political wounds, too. When Carney and Smith signed a memorandum of understanding...
Auditor General Karen Hogan won’t be conducting an audit into the circumstances of the terminated PrescribeIT program or into the financial practices of Canada Health Infoway, which spent nearly $300-million on the technology. Her office told The Hill Times that Health Minister Marjorie Michel did not ask them to investigate, and that conducting a review would duplicate work that’s expected...
Throughout the negotiations last fall and earlier this year between Ottawa and the provincial governments in Alberta and British Columbia, Prime Minister Carney has been guided by a series of internal government polls that showed a significant majority of Canadians were broadly in favour of his plan to push a new oil pipeline to the Pacific Coast, according to documents...
Enlightened Americans will watch in horror today as Donald Trump presides over a grotesque national birthday celebration, recoiling at the president’s kingly indulgences, seeing them as affronts to the memory of the noble patriots who established their republic 250 years ago.
When Canada signed the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States in 2002, the bargain rested on one assumption: that the U.S. offers a fair, humane process to people fleeing persecution. That assumption is no longer true, and this week the U.S. Supreme Court made it official. In two rulings on June 25, the Court sided with the Trump...
One of the perverse joys of politics is when an elected official looks you in the eye and tells you that the thing going on directly in front of your face is not happening. This happened twice during Mark Carney’s Oprah giveaway day on Thursday: You get a port! And you get a tunnel! And everybody gets a pipeline, whether...
Canada’s national holiday and America’s fall within a few days of each other, yet celebrate two very different things. Each celebrates their respective country’s birth, of course, but they define this in different ways. The American commemorates a breach, an abrupt and indeed violent rupture with the imperial power; the Canadian, the date scheduled for its inception as a federal...
Prime Minister Mark Carney deserves credit for doing the thing that prime ministers before him have been too pusillanimous to do for decades. While it shouldn’t be politically risky, really, to spend some money to refurbish the official residence of the Prime Minister ‐ which has been inhabited only by mice and insects for the last 10 years – this...
Mark Carney makes $17 billion in infrastructure pledges to B.C. on same day door opens to pipeline from Alberta to tidewater
Right after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith rolls out her pipeline plans to the country Thursday night she heads off to the Cowboys Music Festival. As the premier makes her way to Cowboys she sounds very happy. She is not claiming victory when the goal line is still down the field. But she and her government have clearly moved the yardsticks...
On July 6th and 7th, NATO leaders will gather at the presidential palace in Ankara for their annual summit. As at every heads-of-government meeting at which the United States is present these days, all eyes will be on Donald Trump. Will he berate his fellow leaders for refusing to support the United States in its Iranian misadventure? Will he announce...
In a recent appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance opened up about his admiration for the disgraced former Republican leader. In particular, Mr. Vance wanted to express his outrage over the fate Mr. Nixon met for his involvement in the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced his resignation as president in 1974. “If Watergate...
Israel’s right to defend itself “does not grant us the right to oppress others,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz once warned in an editorial. Seizing new land requires ruling that land, and rule without representation brings resistance. In turn, it continued, “resistance brings in its wake oppression. Oppression brings in its wake terrorism and counterterrorism.”
When the Alberta government announced the makeup of what was to be an impartial panel examining the economic cost of independence, a couple of the names raised eyebrows. Ted Morton would be taking part. The former provincial finance minister was a signatory to the infamous “firewall letter” that was published in 2001 and called for greater Alberta autonomy in Canada...
Mark Carney has only himself to blame, for the controversy that erupted last week when he announced a half-baked plan to buy up vacant condominiums. But the blowback, as strong as any he’s faced since becoming prime minister, may ultimately prove a blessing in disguise both for him and for the country
For all the ills former prime minister Justin Trudeau left his successor to face, the defence file has been a surprising bright spot. What makes this all the more remarkable is the fact that just 30 months ago, the then-head of the Royal Canadian Navy took to YouTube to declare that his team and equipment were in a “critical state.”...
The Prime Minister has been telling a gleaming story about Canada, but is avoiding the dark clouds gathering ahead
Mark Carney’s newest video, released just in time for Canada Day, is a sober affair, giving the nation some hard truths as a 159th birthday present. The climate plans of Justin Trudeau’s years have to be ratcheted back; the world is a dangerous place and trust is a rarer commodity in that world than oil.
How far will Canada’s prime ministers go to avoid headlines with a multimillion-dollar figure attached to the words “24 Sussex Drive”? Embarrassingly far.
It’s been nearly 160 years, and we’ve yet to fully figure out what it means to be Canadian. Just flip back through the archives of this paper and you’ll find a history of hand-wringing about that fact. The constant pull from south of the border, a Star editorial argued in 1976, “requires an answer to reinforce Canada’s will for cultural...
Canada Day is my favourite holiday of the year. I’m serious. Ask my wife. We’ve debated Christmas versus Canada Day many times and I’m holding firm. It isn’t because I was minister of Canadian Heritage at one point and it seems obligatory or because I’m a sappy nationalist. It is because I genuinely love Canada and I love that we...
In my column last week, I focused on why I love Quebec, as well as assessing some of its flaws. I quoted former Quebec premier Jean Lesage, who described his attachment to his homeland and his country as “Le Québec, ma patrie—le Canada, mon pays.” This week, for Canada Day, I thought I would articulate the strengths and weaknesses of...
Shuffles of the opposition front bench – the roster of critics, or as the Conservatives prefer, shadow ministers, assigned to dog the government ministers for their respective portfolios – rarely excite much notice. That has been especially true of the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre: partly because there are so many critics (83, in the current incarnation, including shadow associate ministers...
Is Canada ready to surf a socialist wave? After the shock victories of three hard-left candidates in last week’s U.S. Democratic primaries, voters and their leaders may wonder whether our country could elect the likes of “democratic socialists” Darializa Avila Chevalier, Brad Lander and Claire Valdez. Chevalier is particularly radical: in a since-deleted X post she wrote “I forgot to...
It should come as no surprise that Canada's prime minister would go to bat for national unity, but it remains unclear exactly how Mark Carney's determination will manifest itself in Alberta. At his end-of-sitting news conference last week, Carney vowed to make the case for Canada and use the summer months to convince Albertans that things are improving, and that...
'Highly ill-advised' card comes amid tension over military procurement. Amid the ongoing review of Canada's fighter jet procurement, a federal public servant has been rebuked for distributing a custom-made business card featuring two Lockheed Martin F-35s at a recent military trade show. According to federal guidelines, all government business cards must follow a standardized template, with a Canadian flag as...
The Trump administration is hindering work at the United Nations on advancing equality, says Canada's UN Ambassador David Lametti. "There has been a general obstructionist policy, (a) cantankerous policy with respect to women's rights, a woman's right to choose, with respect to LGBTQ+ rights (and) gender equality," Lametti told The Canadian Press when asked to describe American actions at the...
The Royal Canadian Air Force and the U.S. air force will appear together in the skies over Ottawa today to mark the Fourth of July. Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence today. Revellers gathered at the official residence of U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra fo
Canada footing the bill for the bridge 'is the big myth that is out there,' Hoekstra said. Pete Hoekstra’s claim that Canada paying to construct the Gordie Howe International Bridge is a “big myth” has been branded “a punch in the face” by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s director of communications. Article content Andrew MacDougall, who held the role when...
Mark Carney’s wave of summer spending Thursday included numerous billion-dollar references to new projects in British Columbia and Alberta, but economists are questioning the lack of detail as to where the money will come from. In his typical rhetorical style, the Prime Minister made several references to “catalytic” investments that will attract more than $200-billion in private capital.
Alberta’s latest attempt to get a new oil pipeline approved has both the federal and provincial governments promising heavy public investment to move heavy crude oil, all in search of heavy economic benefits. And despite a price tag that may only begin at more than $35 billion, government money may be both a worthwhile and necessary investment, say economists and...
The finance minister’s office is refusing to release data to back up recent claims by Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada will substantially accelerate its defence spending. “Our fiscal framework has already provisioned to achieve four per cent of GDP in total defence spending by the end of this decade, ahead of NATO’s timetable,” Carney told the CANSEC Defence conference...
Ex-environment minister says climate change not a priority for the government. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson says a second pipeline to the West Coast will be money well-spent for the federal government but can't say how much Ottawa would be on the hook for. "I am quite comfortable that this is a good investment for Canadian taxpayers," Hodgson said in an...
CALGARY -- The Calgary Stampede parade turned into a pseudo-referendum on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Friday, as she heard both cheers and jeers while riding shotgun on a wagon clip-clopping through the city's sun-baked downtown.
Former environment and climate change minister Steven Guilbeault is pushing back on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s assessment that a new pipeline will be profitable for all Canadians. “I respectfully disagree with the prime minister,” Guilbeault said in an interview with CTV News Channel on Friday. “Yes, there is money coming from the TMX pipeline, but for this to be profitable...
Former Conservative member of the British Columbia legislature Amelia Boultbee, who left the caucus to sit as an Independent, is now a member of the governing New Democrats. Boultbee, who won her seat as a B.C. Conservative by narrowly edging out an NDP opponent by a few hundred votes, told a joint news conference with Premier David Eby on Friday...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced Thursday that her government has a route - and builders - for a new pipeline to the B.C. coast, just hours after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a deal with B.C. to make it possible. Smith and Carney stood together in Calgary to announce that Alberta has formally submitted a proposed route to Ottawa's major...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet next week with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, but federal officials would not say whether the prime minister plans to raise human rights concerns during the visit. At a background briefing ahead of the trip, officials would only point to Carney’s past comments on the issue. “The Prime...
Alberta's Opposition NDP leader says Premier Danielle Smith's plan for a new pipeline has his support, but he's calling on her to be honest about how much taxpayers could be on the hook for.
OTTAWA -- The federal government is exploring possible guardrails or alternatives to using what she says is a "contentious" section of the Labour Code that allows Ottawa to intervene in bitter bargaining conflicts, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said this week.
EDMONTON -- Elections Alberta says a petition calling for a ban on new coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, spearheaded by musician and activist Corb Lund, has failed.
'Hopefully on a number of these issues we reach resolution sooner rather than later,' U.S. ambassador said. The U.S. envoy to Canada says 14 months of trade talk between Canada and the Trump administration has resolved few issues, but insists the Americans will keep talking in the hopes of striking an agreement on the future of CUSMA, as well as...
The RCMP says it wasn’t its job to ensure its newest border patrol helicopter was allowed to fly in Canada, even as it defends paying for the Black Hawk it can’t use after it was grounded because of concerns from Transport Canada. The Mounties also won’t reveal the cost of the daily fees they are paying towards the $7.5-million contract...
The opening of the Gordie Howe bridge is stalled because the U.S. wants to review the impact of construction costs and delays on revenue-sharing, according to U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra. Hoekstra said that Canada footing the bill for the bridge “is the big myth that is out there … I think it’s important that people realize this, okay...
A Cuban Canadian advocacy group is calling on the federal government to enable businesses to conduct work with Cuba as the island struggles under a renewed blockade from the United States. In a statement on its website, the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) said the UN General Assembly has “overwhelmingly” has condemned the U.S. and its actions against the Caribbean...
Canadians are evenly split on whether they believe the proposed Alto high-speed rail project should be a government priority, according to the latest data from Nanos Research, commissioned by CTV News. The multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project would connect Quebec City to Toronto and promises to cut travel times between those cities in half. The federal government recently concluded its 100-day public...
Eligible Canadians will find a bit more cash in their bank accounts starting today as quarterly payments begin for the federal Liberals’ boosted affordability benefit. The Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit is paid out to lower-income households every three months and was previously called the GST/HST credit. Eligible households got a one-time payment worth 50 per cent of the benefit’s...
The Canadian government’s foreign influence registry will come into force in early August, bringing into being a long-promised, long-delayed tool for tracking the activities of agents of foreign states. An order-in-council recently issued by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet reveals for the first time that the government has fixed Aug. 4 as the date. People and entities working on behalf...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have announced plans to build a new pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast as a private public partnership. This is “an approach that gives certainty to our businesses to build,” said Carney, who made the announcement at a press conference with Smith in Calgary Thursday evening. “Canada and Alberta...
A new pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast will run through Kamloops, potentially bringing years of construction work and hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to the city. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced Thursday that the project has been referred to Canada's Major Projects Office. “We’ve agreed that the best route for a...
The United States’ top trade official is pointing to Canada’s deepening economic ties with China as one of the reasons Washington is refusing to renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on free trade (CUSMA) in its current form. Speaking to Global News on Thursday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the White House is concerned Beijing could use Canada as a back...
Canada and the Philippines signed agreements today on energy, natural resources, labour and tourism, during a high-level visit in Vancouver. Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Canada, in the first visit of the country's head of state in more than a decade.
Alberta was set to unveil more details about its proposed oil pipeline to B.C. coast this afternoon
British Columbia and the federal government have unveiled a multibillion-dollar agreement that will maintain the northern oil tanker ban, eliminating the possibility of an oil pipeline from Alberta to B.C.'s northern coast. But the memorandum of understanding unveiled by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier David Eby in Vancouver on Thursday also acknowledges Canada’s agreement with Alberta on a trans-provincial...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are reviving a line of attack against Democrats heading into the midterm elections: They're communists.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump's executive order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday will rule on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is scheduled to leave for Ankara on Monday to attend the annual NATO summit -- the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to Turkey since 2015. Turkey's capital will make up the first leg of Carney's week-long sojourn to the Middle East, which will conclude with a short stay in Saudi Arabia aimed at deepening...
The Trump administration is hindering work at the United Nations on advancing equality, says Canada's UN Ambassador David Lametti. "There has been a general obstructionist policy, (a) cantankerous policy with respect to women's rights, a woman's right to choose, with respect to LGBTQ+ rights (and) gender equality," Lametti told The Canadian Press when asked to describe American actions at the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet next week with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, but federal officials would not say whether the prime minister plans to raise human rights concerns during the visit. At a background briefing ahead of the trip, officials would only point to Carney’s past comments on the issue. “The Prime...
A Cuban Canadian advocacy group is calling on the federal government to enable businesses to conduct work with Cuba as the island struggles under a renewed blockade from the United States. In a statement on its website, the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) said the UN General Assembly has “overwhelmingly” has condemned the U.S. and its actions against the Caribbean...
Prime Minister Mark Carney's vision of middle powers working with less traditional partners outside the superpower club is already taking shape at the United Nations, says Canada's ambassador. "We have set up a number of different kinds of relationships that work for specific issues," said David Lametti, Canada's ambassador to the UN. "And that's precisely the manner in which I...
China’s BYD has emerged as one of the most consequential companies in the global automotive transition. Once known primarily as a battery producer, it is now the world’s largest seller of battery-electric vehicles and a major producer of plug-in hybrids, batteries, and energy-storage systems. BYD’s combination of low-cost vehicles, technological innovation, and control over much of its supply chain has...
For Canada and its allies and partners, the main response to Russian claims of Arctic dominance is to see through their own icebreaker and Arctic economic development plans.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
In 1995 the Canadian economy was not exactly humming along – it still hadn’t got its mojo back after the severe 1990-92 recession. The unemployment rate was 9.5%, GDP per capita had only just made it back to the level of 1989, and steep spending cuts in Paul Martin’s February budget signaled more contraction.
The name tags that RCMP officers are required to wear for identification no longer have to display their actual names, a move intended to protect them from digital bad actors. In a significant amendment to the Mounties’ Uniform Dress Manual, regular members now can choose to display only their regimental numbers rather than their names.
Today’s Roundtable discussion began with an email from former Bank of Canada governor and deputy minister of finance David Dodge to fellow Sage contributors. David posed this question and observation: “Can Canada still afford the welfare state we built in the 1960s when domestic productivity, labour force growth and investment were high and the global economic conditions were favourable? In...
Peter Mazereeuw recaps Prime Minister Mark Carney's pipeline deal with Alberta and his infrastructure agreement with British Columbia, then speaks with guest Charlie Feldman about his new book on the history of bad behaviour and strange happenings in Canada's Parliament—Unparliamentary: Tales from Canada's Colourful Parliamentary Past.
With the start of another summer, it’s time to think about new beginnings — for political parties! This week, we’re doing something we haven’t done before. Every December, we draft the party leaders we think will be heading into the sunset. Now, in this first post-Canada Day episode, we’re drafting leaders who we say will be newly installed at the...
A new POLITICO international poll finds voters everywhere fed up with their incumbents. Not in Canada. Nick Taylor-Vaisey and Mickey Djuric talk to Seb Wride of Public First about why Mark Carney is bucking the trend, why Canadians are loving the flag again after years of treating it as a loaded symbol, and why Albertans rank among the proudest Canadians...
Canada and the U.S. share more than July birthdays. Between them is the world’s longest international land border, more than $3 billion in trade daily and they’re longtime partners in defence and security. The relationship is now being tested like few times in its history by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats and tariffs. What do past pivotal moments in Canadian-American...
